Corporate Social Responsibility

Since its foundation in 1942, Norbar has been committed to carrying out business in a way which is fair and socially responsible. This is reflected in its employment policies, commitment to the local community, charitable giving (both locally and internationally) and environmental policies.

Employee welfare

The care of our employees and by extension their families is part of our commitment to Banbury and the neighbouring community. We believe in high quality local employment to sustain the local area.

Local community and charitable giving

Norbar has been involved in the local community since its foundation and continues to show its commitment locally in a variety of ways including:

Participation on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce

Sponsorship of the Banbury Football, Rugby and Cricket teams

Partnership with North Oxfordshire Academy including the provision of mentors, work experience placements and internships

Board representation at the Engineering Trust, which promotes engineering in Oxfordshire

Providing in-school sessions on engineering careers at local schools

Taking work experience students from schools and colleges

Involvement in awarding the Rotary Club of Banbury “Brodey Bursary” to engineering undergraduates

With respect to charitable giving, each year Norbar employees vote to choose one or two local charities to nominate as the company’s “charity of the year” and then work to fund raise for those charities throughout the year. Employee ideas for fund raising have included an intra-company football match, taking part in external sponsored events such as the Broughton Castle Cycling Festival and the Wolf Run, a fishing competition and a variety of raffles. In addition Norbar’s charity committee meets every two months to consider and approve donations to (primarily) local charities and makes approximately 20 - 30 small donations a year to local charities and individuals. In kind support is also given, for example providing gardening for Katharine House Hospice. All employees are entitled to take a certain amount of paid time off (in addition to their holiday allowance) to take part in charitable volunteering.

While the focus of its support is on local charities, Norbar has also looked at ways in which it can help people in need further afield and as a result has recently teamed up with Oxfam as part of its Oxfam Collects at Work scheme (https://www.oxfam.org.uk). Oxfam has launched this scheme in an effort to build up the stock for its charity shops and make it more convenient for people to donate by locating collection bins in places of work. Norbar has collection points at both of its Banbury premises. Norbar also supports toilet twinning to help provide safe and hygienic toilets for people in poor communities (http://www.toilettwinning.org/).

Environmental policies

In general the business does not have a high environmental impact and minimises it by following the principles of “reduce, reuse and recycle”. Consistent with this philosophy, in 2015 Norbar switched on a solar PV scheme capable of generating 200,000 kWh per annum saving 111 tonnes of CO2 and the equivalent of the electricity needed to power 50 homes. Furthermore, working in conjunction with The Low Carbon Hub, Norbar’s PV scheme will generate an income of up to £7,000 per year to support the development of further community-owned renewable energy projects.

Since November 2015 Norbar has operated an energy management system certified by BSI to be in compliance with ISO 50001:2011. This standard specifies requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an energy management system, whose purpose of which is to enable organisations like Norbar to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance.